We collectors take plenty of measures to protect our diecasts. We keep them in the packaging, keep the boxes, put them in closed displays, handle them with care; anything to ensure they are kept as pristine as possible.

That’s not to say all our diecasts are free from any imperfections, evidenced by my own collection. There’s the Clint Bowyer Jack Daniels No. 07 that has some notable scratches that I overlooked when purchasing it. The Chris Buescher Cinnamon Toast Crunch car I just received has a few small spots of missing paint. My Dill Whittymore Mt. Olive ARCA Racing Champions car has, like many of its era, cracked paint. And then there’s all my customs, which are far from perfect. Some have bad paint jobs, I cracked the windshield of one while putting it back together, and several are missing decklid fins because I have a propensity to shoot them across my garage when removing them, and thus they are lost forever.

I’m especially okay with the latter, because there’s usually a story behind some imperfection, like the Katherine Legge 2018 Bubba Burger custom I made that has no right-side tires. I purchased a box-less “mystery diecast” once for $20, and it turned out to be a Noah Gragson raced win that had no rear tires — he had shredded them in a burnout. I went through an array of other donors trying to find tires that would fit, but none, not even when I cut them up with a razor, did the job. So, I simply put the good wheels on the left as that’s the only side you can see in my wall-mounted case. No one is any the wiser.   

These cars’ imperfections are still extremely minor compared to some in my “collection.” Many are beaten, battered, scratched, dented and abused. Their flaws are impossible to ignore. They are missing major parts or scratched so intensely it’s almost hard to discern their scheme. They are, at least on the diecast market, worthless.

And yet, they are the most important in my collection. They are the ones my daughter and I play with together. The same 1/24s and 1/64s I played with when I was her age.

These diecasts have been propelled down stairs and raced across the living room floor. They’ve fallen off furniture and been bashed into walls. They’ve been used in “tournaments” where we see which cross a line faster, land off the coffee table closest to the end of the rug, or the one who can complete the most 360s. Sometimes they’re just launched from opposite ends of the hallway with the intention of seeing just how spectacularly they can crash, accompanied by the soundtrack of my daughter’s laughs.

My daughter and I are doing to these cars exactly what I did to them as a kid with my dad, my friends or while alone. For three decades they’ve been bashed, and while certainly worse for the wear, they continue to deliver happy memories.

They’re not the best diecasts I have by any traditional measure, but they are the best diecasts in my collection for the joy they create.